Vulnerable and divided: the uncertain state of the Circassian language

On 14 March, the Cir­cass­ian people celebrate the Day of Cir­cass­ian Language and Writing. Cir­cass­ian, a native language of the North Caucasus, faces many serious chal­lenges, including a lack of official support, a divided literary standard, a decreas­ing interest in learning it in edu­ca­tion­al insti­tu­tions, and a dimin­ish­ing presence at home.

It was on this day in 1853 that the first Cir­cass­ian language textbook, by famous Adygea educator Umar Bersey, was published in Tbilisi.

Cir­cass­ian is an indige­nous language of the Caucasus, closely related to the Abkhaz language. It has a rich consonant inventory — up to 60 sounds depending on the dialect — and a complex structure, where a single word can cor­re­spond to a whole sentence of Russian.

Today, Cir­cass­ian is divided into two literary standards — Adyghe, spoken primarily by Cir­cas­sians in Adygea and Krasnodar Krai, and Kabardian, in Karachay–Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. Despite dif­fer­ences, native speakers consider Adyghe and Kabardian to be parts of a common Cir­cass­ian language.

UNESCO considers the Cir­cass­ian language, like many other Caucasian languages, to be vul­ner­a­ble.

Canceling mandatory Circassian classes

In January 2007, the Supreme Court of Adygea overruled the com­pul­so­ry teaching of Cir­cass­ian in the republic’s schools, which was intro­duced back in 2000. This has exac­er­bat­ed the already difficult position of the language.

Both Russian and Cir­cass­ian are official state languages in Adygea, but ethnic Cir­cas­sians make up only 26% of the pop­u­la­tion.

The court ruled that it was unlawful to force students to study Cir­cass­ian if they do not wish to, (even for ethnic Cir­cas­sians). The issue was report­ed­ly initially raised by the parents of students who were forced to study Cir­cass­ian in schools.

This is a sentiment echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in July 2017 said it was unac­cept­able to force someone to study a language that was not their native tongue thereby opposing the com­pul­so­ry study of state languages within the national republics. After this, inspec­tions were carried out in many republics to check for vio­la­tions of this rule.

Circassian as a second class language

Zaurbiy Chundyshko, Chairman of the Maykop Cir­cass­ian Council, told OC Media that Cir­cass­ian is in a difficult situation. One of the main problems, according to him, is the reduction in the number of hours allocated for language learning in schools.

His public organ­i­sa­tion demanded at the end of 2016 that the author­i­ties in Adygea pass a law on the study and preser­va­tion of the Cir­cass­ian language.

‘Another question is why our local author­i­ties do not adopt it. Why? For us this remains unclear’, he says.

Chundyshko said that the local author­i­ties simply point to the fact that Cir­cass­ian, along with Russian, is already an official state language in Adygea, and claim teaching hours of Cir­cass­ian provided for by the Ministry of Education of Russia and Adygea, are completed in full.

He says that despite the author­i­ties claiming to fulfil the require­ment to use Cir­cass­ian within all insti­tu­tions in the republic, official records and documents are kept only in Russian.

Chundyshko said that on the eve of the Day of the Cir­cass­ian language, 14 March, his organ­i­sa­tion plans to again demand the author­i­ties pass a law on Cir­cass­ian language.

Attempts to save the language

Cir­cass­ian language text-book (Madina Aliyeva /OC Media)

Former director of Adygeya’s Institute of Human­i­tar­i­an Studies, and a prominent Cir­cass­ian scientist and linguist, professor Batyrbiy Bersirov, says that the teaching of Cir­cass­ian language is in trouble. He notes that interest in studying the language in uni­ver­si­ties has dropped off dra­mat­i­cal­ly in the last 2–3 years, and that in the human­i­tar­i­an faculties, interest in Cir­cass­ian has also decreased.

According to him, there are no primary schools where instruc­tion is conducted solely in Cir­cass­ian, and the level of training of school teachers in Cir­cass­ian is alarming.

‘We, at the level of the Institute for Human­i­tar­i­an Studies, the Ministry of Education, the public, are trying to intensify work with students in schools, to interest them in going to study at the Faculty of Adyghe Cultural Philology after grad­u­at­ing from school’, Bersirov says.

According to the latest data from Adygea’s Ministry of Education and Science, there are 148 schools in the republic, with around 50,000 pupils. Only 34 of these offer any lessons on Cir­cass­ian language and lit­er­a­ture.

Although the situation is difficult, a newspaper, in Cir­cass­ian, Adyg Voice, is regularly published, as well as magazines and sci­en­tif­ic bulletins at uni­ver­si­ties.

‘Func­tion­al­ly, the Cir­cass­ian language fulfills its duties. In addition, now there is a lot going on to prepare federal textbooks’, Bersirov explains.

Spoken only at home

A number of pre-schools in the city of Maykop now hold Cir­cass­ian language circles, Asya Shevot­suko­va, who works in a kinder­garten in Adygea, told OC Media.

‘We have a Cir­cass­ian language circle in the kinder­garten, but there is not much time dedicated to that. And not all children can visit this circle. Only a certain number — 15 children’, she said

Shevot­suko­va said there are more people wishing to join the circle than there are spots available. In addition, the circle gathers only twice a week for half an hour.

‘If in families they speak their native language, then this is a big plus. But very few people do this’, she said.

She is echoed by Fatima Pshizova, an office worker in a company in Adygea. ‘The position of our native language is certainly not the best, but all because we are less likely to speak in our native language. Even among relatives. Most likely, we ourselves are to blame for this’, she tells OC Media.

Fatima says that two months ago she got a new job and most of all she was surprised that in a fairly large group, everyone talks to each other only in Cir­cass­ian. ‘It's so cool!’ she exclaims.

Zhambot (who did not wish to reveal his surname), a philol­o­gist from Kabardino-Balkaria, says that it is not enough to speak the language at home. If the native language is used only at a household level, this means that only simple expres­sions and sentences are used. And this, according to Zhambot, is not enough to preserve the language.

‘To under­stand how much our level of Cir­cass­ian language has dropped, I suggest that everyone in doubt listen to old Cir­cass­ian songs. In general, where do the words come from? They come with new devel­op­ments, changes in life’, he said.

Zhambot says there are young writers to be found, but that they do not see the prospect of being published and must find a job doing something else to feed their families.

‘We have very few magazines in our native language, we do not have a lot of pro­grammes on Cir­cass­ian themes, we do not have our own tele­vi­sion station, very few young authors are published in their native language. And as you know, writers are indi­ca­tors of the state of society at one time or another’, Zhambot concludes. He adds that on the Internet, there is prac­ti­cal­ly no infor­ma­tion in Cir­cass­ian.

A united Circassian language

Speaking about the problems of the Cir­cass­ian language, it’s impos­si­ble to get around the issue of unifying and creating a single alphabet for Adyghe and Kabardian literary standards, which has been discussed for several decades. Some are in favor of using a Latin alphabet, some are for the Cyrillic alphabet, and some advocate a hiero­glyph­ic alphabet based on ancient Cir­cass­ian tamgas. Given almost all written Cir­cass­ian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, switching to another alphabet would be chal­leng­ing.

However, some experts say that none of these options are suitable for the Cir­cass­ian language, since they do not fully reflect the phonetic features of the language.

Ruslan Kesh, coor­di­na­tor of the public movement the Cir­cass­ian Union in Kabardino-Balkaria, says it is first necessary to formulate the prin­ci­ples of a single literary language, and only then discuss the problem of a single alphabet. He argues that it’s already possible to fix the existing alphabets, to make sure that the same sounds are not indicated by different symbols.

‘For example, the same sound in Eastern and Western dialects are often indicated in different ways. This should be solved now’, he explains. The next step, according to Kesh, is to unite the dialects, instead of replacing one with another. This, he says, will increase the wealth of the language.

‘Then, from the different ways words are formed, one should choose the simplest, and after­wards approve a single literary form of pro­nun­ci­a­tion of words’, he says.

Only after that will the way for a single literary alphabet be opened, Kesh says.

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